This page is a starting point for where to begin when wanting to contribute to the project. Contribution means not only contributing code but also reporting bugs, triaging bugs, answering questions on newsgroups, documentation, and even spreading the word by blogging or giving a talk on your local Eclipse DemoCamp. The goal of this wiki page is to educate and to be as up front as possible with expectations so that the process can be as efficient as possible.

Reporting Bugs

If you find a bug, log it on the Eclipse bugzilla to Eclipse > JDT > UI. See the description of how a great bug report looks like. If you find a bug that you think is a duplicate, is not a bug, etc. feel free to comment saying so.

If wanting to track bug changes in JDT UI there are a few ways:

Via e-mail. If you want to receive e-mail when a bug is logged you can watch the jdt-ui-inbox@eclipse.org user. You will receive e-mail anytime a new bug is logged to this user or an update is made while assigned to this user. To set this up see Preferences -> Email Preferences -> User Watching. This will e-mail you for all incoming JDT UI bugs.

Via Atom. You can convert any query in bugzilla to a feed that will update when a matched bug changes. To convert a search to a feed perform a search and select "Feed" at the bottom of the search results.

Contributing Code

Whether you're wanting to fix a typo in javadoc or to implement the next whiz bang feature for JDT UI you'll need to know a few things before you contribute code.

Configuring the workspace

Getting the code is the first and the biggest step, but there are a few more steps

JDT UI uses project-specific settings for compiler warnings/errors, code formatting etc, which you will automatically get when you clone the Git repository. So you do not have to worry about configuring these.

However we have the following Save Actions enabled in our workspaces:

Format edited lines

Organize imports

Remove trailing white spaces on non-empty lines

For development in the master branch, the target platform should be the latest 4.3 I-build. By default, the Eclipse SDK will use the Running Platform as the target platform.

Enable API tooling, and specify an appropriate API baseline. For example, for 4.3 development the baseline should be 3.8.

You also need Java SE 5 or later to successfully compile the code.

Creating a patch

Unit Testing

Testing is imperative to the health of the project. We have a significant amount of tests. The quantity of tests will keep growing as more functionality is added to JDT UI. If you are contributing a fix or writing an enhancement, it is a requirement that tests are written. If you don't write them a committer will have to and that could slow down the contribution process.

There are a couple of things that you should know about our testing process:

Most tests are included in org.eclipse.jdt.ui.tests and org.eclipse.jdt.ui.tests.refactoring, but you will need the other test plug-ins as well to satisfy dependencies.

The main test suite for org.eclipse.jdt.ui.tests is org.eclipse.jdt.ui.tests.AutomatedSuite, and the main test suite for org.eclipse.jdt.ui.tests.refactoring is org.eclipse.jdt.ui.tests.refactoring.all.AllAllRefactoringTests.

If you create a new TestCase make sure to add it to the correct test suite.

If you want to make a good impression, write tests. This goes for any project, of course.

Before You Check In

Commit comments are required for all code commits, bugs should be logged to track work and the bug number and a description is then used in the commit comment to describe the change. For example when fixing a bug, use: "Fixed bug xxx: <title of bug>". The "bug xxxx" part is really important as this is what is used to relate code changes to bugs.

Before committing changes, catch up to all changes made by others, and then run the tests.

Don't commit your changes if this will cause compile errors or API errors for others, or when there are test failures.

The Build

We commit a change only when the tests are green, hence build failures should not occur normally. Even so things can go wrong, hence sign up for the platform-releng-dev mailing list. You'll receive e-mails when builds complete and when build and test failures occur. It's always good to pay extra special attention on the mornings after you make a commit or someone makes a commit on your behalf. The normal reaction to "breaking the build" is to log a bug, notify the platform-releng-dev list about it so that others can gauge the quality of the build, and then fix the bug.

Newsgroup/Forum

We try to be prompt and responsive on the newsgroup but there's always room for improvement. If you know the answer to a query feel free to respond. It is also helpful to answer questions on stackoverflow which are tagged 'jdt' or 'eclipse-jdt'.

Wiki

The wiki is open and can be edited by all. If you find a typo, a broken link, or anything that you view as a small issue, feel free to fix it. If you plan to contribute a significant amount of information or create a new article, we request that you log a bug so that we're aware of what you're contributing. This is so that we can ensure consistency structurally and in the message conveyed.

Website

In addition to the wiki we have website. Unlike the wiki the website is not open. However, if you see something wrong please feel free to provide a patch. The website contents are in a git repository